A New Smoke – Worship Service or Worship Service?
A new smoke for ya…
I was helping out with a new ministry in Durham on Saturday and God really spoke to me. Well, not a literal audible kind of speak, but you know what I mean. Now don’t get me wrong, I love gathering in community on Sunday morning (or any other), but I wonder if we have put God in a box when it comes to what worshiping God is really about?
Worship is not simply an act, it is a state of being. Worship is something that can be done individually or as a community. (I think it should be done in the midst of the community.) As a Christ Follower, I’m trying to learn this. What does it mean to have a “worship service”. Maybe the community of believers should have more worship service. I often wonder if Jesus would walk in our worship services or be out among the people. I wonder.
Mark 10:45 says, “The Son of Man did not come into the world to be served, but to SERVE and give his life a ransom for many.”
I was blog surfing and came across a new church in NW Cary called The Creek that echoed what I’m trying to get at here. (They are starting on September 14th if you are in that area. Check them out!) Matt Rice says this about their church… “we want the opportunity to share Christ with them. We want to love them, serve them, and one day share with them about the death, burial and resurrection of JESUS.”
The only thing I’d add to that is that we also want to serve them WITH Christ. He is present in us and with us. And whether we know it or not, he is present in our city and community. He is present and working the most unlikely, most uncomfortable and most unlovely places, and he wants us to join him. He calls us to join him. The Church as more than a building, a city as more than a place of activity and people are more than just a notch on our conversion belt. Christ’s church is the hope of the world, and being the hope of the world should take that hope OUT as an act of worshiping Him. Just some thoughts. I love this quote…
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
May the world cry because of our Christ-filled lives serving with Him as He makes all things new because we love and worship him so much.
Smoke that.
I tried to comment on the trackback to this post, but it wouldn’t let me. Here is the trackback link comment I made.
Thanks for the trackback. Read a bit on the site about how the name came about. I live on tobacco road in NC. Tobacco is a plant that God created that man corrupted. (I toured the RJR cigarette plant in 2nd grade and was given candy cigarettes when that puffed smoke when we left) If you live in NC, you can see that God is redeeming His creation and making an area that was built on Tobacco Money (see Duke and Wake Forest) new. I think it is a good picture of God’s redemptive work in our lives.
And I don’t think service is the ‘only’ act of worship, it is just the ‘neglected’ act of worship that I (meaning mostly me) think is missed most of the time. We need to learn more about what Paul meant when he said he “poured himself out like a drink offering, ” or where Jesus said, “I came to serve, not to be served.” Matt 20:28
Oh, I don’t smoke.
Occastionally I’ll puff a pipe to feel smarter though.
heel93
August 21, 2008 at 4:05 am